Here are a few things you shouldn’t do if you want to eliminate comment spam:
No follow comment URLs - There is absolutely no proof that the nofollow tag prevents spam, in fact, when I started using the dofollow plugin spam didn’t increase one bit (except for a few days when a lot of bloggers said they also noticed a large increase, due to some “spam attack”), and because I use a good anti-spam plugin (Akismet) I don’t have to worry about the spammers getting any Google Juice.
Get rid of the URL field - Keep the damn URL field people! I rarely take the time to comment on blogs that disable it anymore. Your URL is the link to who you are, I think any blogger who gets rid of it could care less who their readers are.
Use experimental systems - If you get asked to beta test some new great “akismet-killer” anti-spam system, you probably shouldn’t use it on your blogs that get a lot of spam. Otherwise, what happens if the system fails you? Cleaning up hundreds of spams in the morning isn’t my idea of fun…
Make your anti-spam policies too strict - I used to use Spam Karma 2 a while back, but switched to Akismet for one simple reason - Spam Karma by itself sucked. It didn’t matter where I set all the settings, spam always made it through, and it actually started blocking some good comments, even my own! One of these days I may switch Spam Karma again and try the Akismet plugin for it.
Use CAPTCHAs - I hate CAPTCHAs, and I tend to think even the most advanced ones do nothing to prevent spam, all they do is piss off your visitors who have to type them in every time they comment. Those “what is 2 + 5″ type of CAPTCHAs aren’t nearly as bad, and work just as well in most cases.
And finally, the worst possible thing you can do is…
Disable Comments - That is one thing I have never understood. TechCrunch has like 200,000 readers but they let you comment, so how come other blogs that aren’t anywhere near as popular disable them? I think it is for two reasons, #1 - they don’t know how to take criticism, or #2 - they are too lazy to moderate them (even though it takes what, maybe 10 minutes?).
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